Hello and welcome to this week’s reserve team round up. First up we welcome Hayley back from her well-earned two-week holiday.
For those of you who follow us on Twitter and Facebook you may have noticed that we will be virtually opening Knots Landing at RSPB Snettisham on Thursday 17th September. This has been a complex project but has resulted in a storm-resistant hide to enable you to watch the incredible wader spectacle in the autumn / winter and the breeding common terns during the summer. To ensure it is ready to open to the public Jim has been working hard with his incredible level of precision constructing a new boardwalk to the hide and working with Hayley to build two screens either side of the hide. These screens will be important to prevent disturbance to the roosting waders as visitors approach the hide.
Back at Titchwell I spent Monday morning being frustrated by the unforecasted rain which meant I had to alter my plans. I therefore spent the morning repairing a broken window in Fen hide before heading home to complete some tasks on my laptop.
Tuesday was spent finishing raking the vegetation off the fen meadow and creating some migrant holes. The migrant’s holes are basically small glades scattered around the fen trail whereby we cut back the reed to create warm sheltered areas, ideal for migrant passerines such as chiffchaffs, pied flycatchers and maybe even a red-breasted flycatcher.
Wednesday was my day off, following my weekend working the previous week leaving Hayley and Jim to make some adjustments to the outlet pipes on the east bank which continue to cause us issues. We have contractors lined up to make a more substantial repair, however because of coronavirus production of the required materials had ceased, and this delaying this project.
For the past two days I have taken the opportunity to virtually attend the end of project conference for the Roseate Tern EU LIFE project that has been running for the past five years. It was great to hear that over the course of the 5 years breeding numbers across three key sites (Rockabill, Lady’s Lake and Coquet Island) have all increased and the future of Roseate Terns in the UK and Ireland is rosier than before. However, there are still numerous threats to this population including:
Being able to attend virtually meant that I could continue to work as Duty Manager on Thursday at Titchwell, supporting the visitor operations team including providing lunch cover in the café. At the end of Thursday, I went for an adventure in the reedbed to find a sluice to allow water off one of the reedbed compartments and onto Freshmarsh. At this time of the year it is quite a jungle walking through reeds that are much taller than me. Once found I was able to remove a board and let water off the reedbed where the water is too high and flush some onto the Freshmarsh to keep it muddy for waders.
Ending the week I popped down to Titchwell to check on the water levels before heading to Snettisham to replace some signs that were missing on our hides and catching up with Hayley as she cleaned Knot’s Landing before I headed back home to attend the second day of the Roseate Tern conference and write the blogs.
And how could I forget our volunteers Dave and Les who made a start cleaning the inside of Parrinder Hide in preparation for it to be painted, once the paint arrives.
It is now my turn to head off on holiday for a week so I will be passing the baton onto Hayley and Lucy next week to keep you updated with our reserves
Have a great week
Thanks
Lizzie Bruce
North West Norfolk Reserves Warden